Recording Details

Abstract

Space and time are two of the universe's most fundamental elements. Relativity combines these two into the unified notion of space-time, but twistor theory goes beyond this replacing both by something entirely different, where the basic elements are the paths taken by particles of light or other particles without mass.
Twistor theory has already found powerful applications in the field of high-energy physics.

The creation of twistor theory was motivated with the hope that it would shed light on the foundations of quantum physics, a theory that puzzled even Einstein, particularly through the weird effects of quantum non-localityÃ¢ÂÂthe phenomenon whereby the behaviour of quantum particles can seem to have instantaneous effects over large distances. In this lecture, Prof. Penrose will describe a deep link between twistor theory and the simplest form of quantum non-locality and how the connection may be generalized in ways that provide a broader understanding of the phenomenon.